Viking Theatre?

It's good to see Neil Price's inaugural lecture the other day at Aberdeen get a plug in The Times. It's also been great to see the development and flourishing of Viking and Scandinavian Studies side by side at Aberdeen. But since I never trust what I read in the newspapers, I must look forward to seeing Neil's argument set out in detail in print. Let's have the inaugural lecture pamphlet soon, Neil...

Coping with Odin

My other half, who has interesting tastes in music, recommends the new album from Julian Cope. JC is well-known for his interest in standing stones and suchlike (see his book The Modern Antiquarian), and gave a lecture on Odin at the British Museum back in 2001 (see the poster). His latest is entitled Black Sheep - the title track is one of the best (the motto of the album is 'To rally every black sheep is my goal'). Also interesting is 'Psychedelic Odin', drawing on Blake, Robert Graves, the Standing Stones of Stenness and, of course, old One-Eye himself:

'My mother bore me in the Northern Void,

And I am white, but O! my heart is black...'

I leave it to you, dear reader, to work out what the track is really about... In the meantime, I am sorry to have to disappoint modern antiquarians, but the 'stone of Odin' at Stenness probably has nothing to do with Odin, as demonstrated recently by Peter Foote.